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Time to jump, fellow frogs?

Maybe you have heard it said that if you put a frog in hot water, it will jump out, but if you put the frog in comfortable water, then gradually turn up the heat, the frog will just sit there and cook. I don’t know if the story is true of frogs, but I am beginning to think it might be true of me and my perceptions of our environment.

A while back I heard a weather report that included a warning about air quality. It was an ozone alert with advice that adults with respiratory problems and children should stay indoors. I had heard similar warnings before, so I paid no particular attention and went on with my day. Later, a question occurred to me, “When did it become acceptable to me that the air is not safe to breathe?” And it is not just me. No one that I spoke with that day mentioned it. That was the day that I began to wonder if we are like frogs in a pot where the temperature is rising.

Have you heard similar reports? How about the reports that we should not eat a lot of fish because there is too much mercury in them? We once thought fish were good for us. North Carolina blames Tennessee and Midwestern states because their coal-fired power plants emit pollution that kills trees in the North Carolina mountains.

The BP oil spill polluted the Gulf of Mexico and it reminded me of the Exxon Valdez, which polluted the Alaskan coast and fishery. Then I heard a reporter say that the BP spill was not the biggest ever. He claimed that there have been larger spills in less visible places which drew less news coverage.

There is a scandal because the well water at Fort Bragg is so polluted that it is dangerous to drink, but the army supplied it to soldiers anyway. There is a debate about whether to proceed with geo-fracking to get more natural gas. It sometimes pollutes water, but we need the energy.

This frog is feeling uncomfortably warm and he is wondering whether to jump. We already have air, water and food that make people sick. Are we, like the frogs that accept gradually heating water, accepting poison because it only kills us gradually?

Perhaps an even greater concern is whether we are leaving a safe environment for future generations. We profess to care about future generations. We hotly debate how much debt to leave them, how best to provide for their education, how to keep them safe from addictive drugs and how to provide for their security from enemies. How much will those things matter to them if it is not safe to eat, drink or breathe?

Here is a quotation from a recent UN population study. “World population is projected to grow from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 8.9 billion in 2050, increasing therefore by 47 per cent.” Many of our world’s new residents will want to live like Americans. They will want cars, electricity, heat, air conditioning, disposable containers, batteries, electronic devices, pharmaceuticals, air travel and other amenities of modern life.

That leaves us with three basic choices.

Option 1, reduce the number of humans on the planet.

Option 2, we can find and implement ways to pollute less, perhaps by decreasing our use of energy and chemicals.

Option 3, we can keep on doing what we have been doing and see what happens.

It may be that if we take Option 3, Mother Nature will take matters into her own hands and exercise Option 1, to have fewer humans on the planet and many of them living at a subsistence level.

There was a song back in the 1960s with these lyrics, “Oh people look around you; the signs are everywhere. You’ve left it for somebody other than you to be the one who cares.”

Addressing these environmental and safety concerns will require that we care a great deal as individuals, as corporations, as states and as nations. Actually doing something about it is somewhat like addressing the federal budget and national debt. Making the necessary changes will cost somebody something and it is easier to keep on borrowing from future generations than it is to end the deficit spending.

Likewise, it is easier to keep on using more energy and chemicals and over-populating the planet than it is to protect our environment. We have protected our standard of living for the short term rather than become energy efficient and pollution resistant. In doing so, we create an ecological debt for future generations. Much like the frog in the pot, we can deny the reality of our situation because we do not want to pay the price of environmental security.

One of humanity’s great teachers once asked, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Please allow me to paraphrase, “What does it profit humanity if we gain comfort and convenience today and lose our health and safety tomorrow?”

The water in our pot gets warmer every day. But maybe it will be OK. Maybe in the future, we will learn to check for toxins before we eat the fish, drink the water or go outside.

* Bob Morrison is a retired health care executive who lives in Asheboro with his wife, Peggy.